Instant Reminder: Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250s

The 15th and 16th races of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES season took place this weekend, with Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward and Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin leading the way to victory in the Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250 at Wisconsin State Fair Park.

The first series event at the Milwaukee Mile since 2015, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou maintained the lead in points, seeking his third season championship in four years, but it was not easy or without drama. Palou’s car stopped running before the green flag in Race 2, which had major championship implications. At one point, Palou lost the series lead statistically to Team Penske’s Will Power, who was leading the race.

But things always seem to go the Spaniard’s way, and he’ll have a 33-point lead heading into the season finale at the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix Presented by Gainbridge at Nashville Superspeedway on September 15, as Power has had his own issues since then. It’s one of the interesting stories from two wild days of racing.

In this edition of Instant Recall, we take a look at one of the most exciting weekends of the season.

Here’s a crazy statistic that begs the question of why it’s been nine years since the series last raced at this historic venue: Over the 500 laps that make up the doubleheader, there were 1,430 position drives. In Race 1, there were 667. In Race 2, there were 763.

The last three oval track races, including the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway, have seen 2,106 runs.

The big winner of the weekend was Palou, who managed to salvage a number of points in the second half of Sunday’s race. He finished 19th but only lost 10 points to Power, partly because the Ganassi team sped up its car after starting 28 laps behind the pace and Power’s unfortunate spin on the restart caused him to lose a lap. Palou can secure the title in Nashville with 22 points. Excluding bonus points, that would mean a ninth-place finish or better.

Despite a disappointing 10th-place finish in Sunday’s race, Power still gained 20 points over Palou on the weekend. He knows that winning a third series title is still a long shot, but at least he has a chance to do it in Nashville. His best chance is to score maximum points (54).

McLaughlin has made up the last four short oval races. Between 500 laps in last month’s Iowa Speedway doubleheader and this 500, McLaughlin has led 423 laps, picked up two wins, finished third and eighth and climbed to third in the standings. With numbers like that, a cookie in the face (courtesy of Colton Herta, pictured above) seems acceptable.

Santino Ferrucci’s two fourth-place finishes in Milwaukee all but ensured he would become the first AJ Foyt Racing driver since Airton Dare in 2002 to finish in the top 10. Ferrucci, who is 10th, is just 11 points behind Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi in ninth.

O’Ward’s victory Saturday gave him three wins in a season for the first time in his career. He had two wins in the same year twice before. He now has seven.

Rossi had one of his best weekends of the season, finishing seventh and sixth respectively.

· With a second-place finish in Race 2, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon broke Mario Andretti’s record for career top-three finishes. Dixon now has 142 in 401 races. That’s a 35.4 percent finish rate. That’s incredible.

Conor Daly certainly showed off his skills with a third place in Race 1. It was part of a strong weekend for Juncos Hollinger Racing as Romain Grosjean finished ninth in Race 2. Daly’s podium finish was a first for the team.

Other drivers who gained significant camera time this weekend: Chip Ganassi Racing rookie Linus Lundqvist (leading 19 laps in Race 1), Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson (fifth in Race 2) and Herta, who finished third in Race 2 and led 52 laps in both races for Andretti Global with Curb-Agajanian.